For Rockets' Daryl Morey, a game is agony until it's over

For Rockets' Daryl Morey, a game is agony until it's over

Daryl Morey cannot watch meaningful games in person anymore. He slinks away before tipoff to search for peace that he rarely finds.

At Toyota Center, he leaves the game, heads out through the tunnel, goes up a flight of stairs, weaves around metal detectors, opens a pair of double doors, walks down a ramp and reaches the practice court.

He crosses the baseline and enters a small weight room, where two televisions above the doorway broadcast the game.

The Rockets' general manager needs to escape one cauldron, so he can stew alone in another. His sense of control goes out the window once the ball goes up.

It is a sanctuary in the same way that a prison is. Morey can get away from others, but he locks himself up with anxiety. Inside the weight room, the jovial, self-effacing, celebrity GM that usually charms with wiseacre humor and the engaging insight to back it up, can conceal his transformation to Mr. Hyde.

He keeps the sound of the televisions off. Last year, when the Spurs eliminated the Rockets from the postseason with a 39-point trouncing in Houston, Morey could not hear the home crowd boo the most humiliating defeat in franchise history. He did not need to. He drummed up enough ire on his own.

"I just ..." Morey said, searching for words, "I have a tough time."

While reliving the memory of a game, Morey squeezed and smeared the right side of his face, and then wiped his hand on his slacks.

He cannot wrench away the agony. Not after overseeing nearly 1,000 Rockets games without an appearance in the NBA Finals.

Now entering the postseason with the most talented team he has ever assembled, he will have to endure at least 16 high-stakes games, but likely more, for the Rockets to win the title.

They start against the Timberwolves on Sunday. Morey expects to need a lot of alone time.

"I don't think I'm going to enjoy the playoffs this year," he said.

You won't find Rockets general manager Daryl Morey in the stands during the upcoming playoffs. He favors a quieter space to experience those tension-filled contests. (James Nielsen | Houston Chronicle)

'You either have pain or relief from pain'

Seeing Morey yuk it up in the seats used to be common. His seclusion has become increasingly habitual in 11 seasons of running the Rockets.

He hid from every playoff game at home and most on the road in 2017.

In 2015, he did not witness the miracle of Josh Smith raining 3s to mount a comeback win over the Clippers in Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals. Instead, Morey circled the block on foot around the Staples Center and followed the game on his phone.

The Rockets won a franchise record 65 games this season, but Morey no longer experiences the joy of winning so often.

"I wish there was more of that," he said. "A head coach one time described it best: you either have pain or relief from pain. Those are the two states. It's depressing but true."

Each misplay is another paper cut. Deficits eat away at Morey to the bone. Even when victory is likely, indubitable odds give him the shakes. Twenty-point leads – the Rockets led the NBA with 32 of them – still leave a small probability for a collapse. He is not freed until time expires.

"I have the most trouble watching when we're up 20 in the fourth quarter," he said. "At that point, the result that you want is there. It's just, like, moments away. That's when it's hardest for me.

"The only thing that can happen at that point is something not good. That is how I feel. But I'm crazy, so it's fine."

Morey suggested that most executives toil like him, but only Jerry West, who cannot handle watching games, offers a comparison as severe.

"That's unusual for the profession," said Grizzlies general manager Chris Wallace, who worked with Morey for three seasons with the Celtics. "Daryl's a little more to the extreme than I am."

After years of turning over the Rockets' roster, Daryl Morey found his franchise cornerstone with the acquisition of James Harden before the 2012-13 season. (Melissa Phillip | Houston Chronicle)

Game-changing role

It would seem that Morey has plenty to celebrate. He had been so unknown as a Celtics analyst that media outlets had to publish his Facebook profile photo in stories about the Rockets hiring him.

Since then, Houston has won the second-most games and Morey has become the face of a basketball movement.

"Daryl was at the forefront of the league's universal adoption of analytics," said Golden State Warriors general manager Bob Myers. "He also has been a leader in challenging the norm, as far as trade policies and rules. His aggressive approach has become a very successful style."

Before the NBA set records for 3-pointers in seven consecutive seasons, Morey proclaimed the value of shooting them early and often.

"It's now a staple," Wallace said. "He's also as good a big game hunter there's been in the NBA."

Morey turned over the roster like a conveyor belt until he scooped up James Harden, attracted Chris Paul and loaded up on versatile role players.

Along the way, Morey grew the Sloan Conference from "a couple of classrooms at MIT," Wallace said, "to now it's the sports analytics Woodstock."

In a position that typically neuters personality, Morey has increased the specter of his celebrity but remained approachable.

"His sense of humor makes him easily one of my favorite GM's to interact with," said Dallas Mavericks general manager Donnie Nelson.

'Pain is all there is to tell me I'm still here' – From 'Small Ball' the musical

Esteem is easier to get when you build a title contender. Morey does not view himself as a luminary. He always has preferred being a disruptor.

He still brings up his old nickname, which he received as a doubted, baby-faced wonk. It equated him with a chess-playing computer program.

"Deep Blue," Morey said, with a vengeful chuckle.

He said he still senses that "basketball people" think he is a gadfly that does not belong, hears that the rise and fall of the Dwight Howard era debunked his approach, and gets as much criticism as praise for the data-driven direction he has taken the Rockets.

"As many people that are rooting for it, there's a lot of people rooting against it," he said. "They just think we're trying to take the heart out of the game or whatever."

He dislikes the stereotype that he bases every decision on "a spreadsheet," but he comfortably admits that he prioritized talent far above chemistry because the roster rarely had been good enough to focus on improving an intangible quality.

"They're right," he said, "when we're not a great team, we're not going to care as much about chemistry. That's not as important. But when we're a great team – like hopefully we are now – we're going to spend a lot of time worrying about how that guy could impact the locker room."

Morey did not have to watch Harden miss nine of 11 shots in person to understand what more was needed after the Game 6 embarrassment last year.

"If you think about it, we're all going to have very long careers," Morey said of his responsibility to Harden. "He only has this very little window where he's the best player in the league.

"We were putting too much on his shoulders. Even if we win that round, we're almost for sure not winning the next round. We didn't have the weapons to beat Golden State. Game 6 or not, we were going to have to update the team."

Morey finally had the luxury to improve both talent and chemistry last summer. He credits Harden and coach Mike D'Antoni for landing Paul, and the three of them for recruiting 3-and-D veterans P.J. Tucker and Luc Mbah a Moute.

Tucker immediately recognized the roster's versatility: "That was the beauty of it."

With two Hall-of-Fame-caliber playmakers and lineups that could switch interchangeably on defense to guard various opponents, Houston wielded the NBA's most useful Swiss Army knife.

"They were a great offensive team last year, I don't think that's changed," Thunder coach Billy Donovan said. "But they've gotten substantially better on defense. Getting Mbah a Moute and Tucker were a large part of that."

"This is special," Tucker said. "Our goal was to win 60, 65 games, get No. 1. We said that. Now that it's happening, it's something we wanna keep pushing."

'You're ripping the heart from this beautiful game' – From 'Small Ball'

Unfortunately for the Rockets, the math does not favor them or any team pitted against the defending champion Warriors, who Morey said should have won the past three consecutive titles.

They, more than the Rockets, are the manifestation of Morey's model. He concedes that four elite Warriors should be favored over the depth on the Rockets.

Morey assumes that Warriors guard Stephen Curry will return from a Grade 2 MCL sprain of his left knee in time for the late rounds of the playoffs.

Mbah a Moute will miss the first round because of a dislocated shoulder.

Morey still said he is "more confident now than at any other part of the year" about matching up with the Warriors.

The Rockets won the season series, averaged the league's highest point differential and gained an "8 to 15 percent" edge, according to Morey, because of home-court advantage.

"He said repeatedly the last couple of years that every waking moment was about finding a way to beat Golden State," Wallace said. "We'll see where that goes in the playoffs, but it seems to me that he's clearly closed the gap."

Wallace admires and sympathizes with Morey.

"Your public persona is these wins and losses," Wallace said. "That's why the games can be nerve-racking. They define you."

Daryl Morey's musical “Small Ball,” starring Julia Krohn and Orlanders Jones, is playing at the Catastrophic Theatre through May 13 and may offer the deepest insight into the Rockets' general manager.

(Anthony Rathbun | Houston Chronicle)

Musical offers insight

The critics are never far from Morey's mind. He fretted about one a night after his basketball-inspired musical "Small Ball" premiered.

"I can't tell if he likes it," Morey said. "Theater people who know him say, 'That's his way.' I respect it. He doesn't want to be limited by what he says."

Morey hoped the theater critic would write a favorable first review that would influence others.

"If he writes something bad," Morey said, "it could create a different trajectory."

It is clear how math has shaped Morey's worldview. Numbers are definitive. They are unemotional. They serve sports well.

But "Small Ball" — which Catastrophic Theatre is running through May 13, just before the conference finals begin – offers the deepest insight into Morey. The characters search for a place to call home. They thrive but are not accepted. They include a "Director of Analytics."

Of all the times for art to reflect Morey's life, it is ironic that he, an NBA executive known for weathering rosters rife with drama, has produced his most harmonious playoff team this year.

'As many people that are rooting for it, there's a lot of people rooting against it' – Daryl Morey

"I don't see Daryl as having anything to prove," Wallace said. "He's had a decade-plus of very high-level success."

Morey does not see it that way. If he did, he would not validate his critics or embrace that old nickname, the one about a program that innovated but could not take over a sport.

Morey sees himself like the coach in his musical. Every Rockets game remaining this season will give him pain or relief from pain.

"It isn't rational," Morey said. "It is emotional."

He will leave the crowd before tipoff Sunday. In between moments of anguish, he will check the time on a clock above the practice court. It will remind him that a world is rotating beyond the grip of basketball.

Then he will return his attention to the TV and wait for it to all to be over. He might feel joy for a change.